'Communication at a distance' is an idea which has been present in one form or another since people have had any information worth communicating. Early attempts made use of smoke signals, low-frequency drum beats, wind instruments and, as the technology improved, reflecting mirrors, flags and beacon fires. The last of these is interesting as it makes use of a number of useful ideas capable of further development. In its usual form it consisted of a number of 'line of sight' fire beacons, situated at high, fixed locations, which enabled simple messages, using a previously agreed coding repertoire, to be sent along a chain of such beacons. The information content was low, however, and the satisfactory transmission of information by such visual means, conveying an acceptable range of meaning over long distances in a reasonable time, was not to occur until the end of the 18th Century, when a variety of ingenious attempts to establish long lines of communicating devices were made. This was prompted by the requirements of the military: the navy in England and the army in France. As first developed in Europe, the signalling systems adopted were mechanical structures, and significant changes in the appearance of the mechanism could be observed at a distance. This development depended for its practical implementation on the advent of the optical telescope, which although invented in Holland in about 1608 was not manufactured to a useful accuracy until 1757, when John Dollond's achromatic object lens became available. The combination of a refracting telescope and a clearly recognisable signalling structure, mounted on a hill or tall building and within telescopic sight of a similar structure some distance away, constituted a workable system, of which very many were erected in most of the developed regions of the world in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The two systems which were in use, the shutter system and the semaphore system, corresponding in modern technology to digital and analogue systems, both established a firm foundation of telegraphic and organisational techniques for the more versatile electrical systems that were to follow.

While scores of semaphore installations were being established on hill-tops all over the European mainland, enthusiastic technologists were already considering how electricity could be used to achieve the same ends. Indeed, Chappé had considered electricity in 1790 and abandoned it in favour of mechanical systems. He was sufficiently concerned, however, to leave behind a record of his ideas, which were taken up by Ronalds in 1816.

Only a few years after Oersted's discovery that an electric current produces a magnetic field, another practical demonstration of the effects of a unidirectional electric current was being shown at the Royal Society of Arts in London. This was William Sturgeon's soft-iron electromagnet, invented in 1825, and used in the next major advance in the development of telegraphy. The implementation of a device whereby the flow of current in the coils of an electromagnet could effect mechanical move ment by the attraction of an iron pole piece must have been well known to the telegraphy experimenters in the 1830s. Yet it remained largely unused while efforts were being made by Cooke, Wheatstone, Steinheil and others to establish a working system based on magnetic needles. Perhaps it was because these efforts were so successful that the greater potential of the electromagnet was not realised until well into the 1840s. It was not, however, an electrical experimenter but the Professor of Literature of the Arts of Design at the University of New York who was to make this advance.

In this chapter, the use made by the military of electric telegraphy up to the end of the 19th Century is considered. To a major extent, this became the province of governments and the armies, with navies relying on other methods for distant communication. The breadth and scope of these applications began to intensify towards the end of the century, when the first tentative steps in wireless telegraphy began to affect military communication in all the services - this development forms the context of later chapters. In this chapter, the gradual acceptance of line telegraphy by the military is assessed in terms of its value in field service to the commanders and participants in the many conflicts that filled the second half of the 19th Century.

With the interior of Britain, America and most of Western Europe provided with a network of telegraph lines linking principal centres of commerce, the contrast between rapid transfer of information by over land telegraph lines with the leisurely onward progression of messages by packet-ship or steamer to overseas locations proved stifling to business enterprise. The demand for submarine telegraph cables providing a simi lar service to their terrestrial counterparts, but across the seas and oceans, became pressing. Many companies were formed tto initiate experimentation in cable manufacture and laying on the ocean bed, a process which was to lead to a number of successful connections between land stations on different shores during the second half of the 19th Century.

The history of practical wireless communications, as it applies to wireless telegraphy, could be said to commence with Marconi's work. However, this would be to ignore a vast hinterland of events leading up to Marconi's achievement in 1896, which, although not in themselves productive of applicable results, allowed a practical commercial system to emerge through Marconi's enterprise.

This chapter discusses part of the history of telegraphy. It includes the following topics: the advent of thermionics; linking the Empire; maritime communication; life-saving at sea; international agreements; civil aviation; and the role of amateurs.

In this chapter, the use and development of wireless communication for the ground forces is considered in some detail. The equipment and operations problems of both the Navy and the RAF are considered in later chapters. Here, the tactical and operational developments for the Army are described, paying particular attention to the new techniques and problems which emerged for ground communications, for which no counterpart existed in civilian life.

This chapter discusses the use of wireless telegraphy equipment by naval forces.

Airborne telegraphy for the military was borne out of the necessity for the immediate reporting of events seen from the air, which was vital when travelling over enemy territory before radar and other navigational techniques became available to the flyer.

On 31st December 1997, a group of telegraphists gathered at Land's End Radio Station (2359Z) at midnight to witness the end of distress and commercial telegraph operations in the Morse code on the frequency of 500 kHz for all the UK coast stations, a service which had been in operation since the days of spark telegraphy communication. Four CQ (calling all stations) shut-down messages were sent, and hand sent Morse interchanges took place with operators over the whole of Europe. The French Coast Guard had officially terminated their 500 kHz telegraph service a year earlier with a poignant final Morse message, 'CQ, CQ, CQ, this is our last cry before eternal silence'. Elsewhere, silence had already been imposed by the US Coast Guard, which ceased Morse operations in March 1995, following the US Navy and Marines which ceased Morse transmission a few months earlier, while in Australian waters the use of Morse lingered on until 1st February 1999, the date set by the International Maritime Organisation for the final and worldwide demise of the Morse code for distress transmissions.